Early life and family

Gordon
attended Phillips
Academy, but left without graduating in 1952.Later, in
1959, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in English with honors
from the University of
Arizona , where he met his first wife, Loretta Frances
Fokes. They married in November 1956 and together had 3
children.

He is a father of four (Jennifer, Rebecca, Ethan, and Atticus), and
a grandfather of six (Anne, and Carla, children of Jennifer; Pearl
and Ezra, children of Rebecca; and Nina and Isaac, children of
Ethan).

In 1963,
Lish became director of linguistic studies at Behavioral Research
Laboratories in Menlo Park, California. There, in 1964, he produced English
Grammar, a text for educators; Why Work, a book of
interviews; New Sounds in American Fiction, a set of
recorded dramatic readings of short stories; and A Man's
Work, an information
motivation sound system in vocational guidance. It consisted of
over 50 translucent albums.

While in Menlo Park, one of Lish's friends was Raymond Carver, who was editing educational
materials in an office across the street from Lish's office. Lish
edited a number of stories which wound up as Carver's first
national magazine publications.

While at Esquire, Lish edited the collections The
Secret Life of Our Times and All Our Secrets Are the
Same, which contained pieces by a number of prominent authors,
from Vladimir Nabokov to Milan Kundera.

In February 1977, Esquire published "For Rupert - with no
promises" as an unsigned work of fiction: this was the first time
it had published a work without identifying the author. Readers
speculated that it was the work of J.D.Salinger, but it was in fact a clever parody
by Lish, who is quoted as saying, "I tried to borrow Salinger's
voice and the psychological circumstances of his life, as I imagine
them to be now. And I tried to use those things to elaborate on
certain circumstances and events in his fiction to deepen them and
add complexity." The Wall
Street JournalFebruary 25,
1977

Editor at Alfred A. Knopf

Lish left Esquire in 1977 to become a senior editor with
the publishing firm of Alfred A.Knopf; he remained here until 1995
and continued to champion new fiction, publishing works by Cynthia Ozick, David
Leavitt, Amy Hempel, Noy Holland, Lynne
Tillman, William Ferguson,
Barry Hannah, Harold Brodkey, Raymond Carver and Joy Williams. After Lish retired from both
teaching and publishing, some of his students continued to make
noted contributions to American letters, the National Book Award
was won in 2004 by Lily Tuck for her novel
The News From Paraguay. In the same year Christine Schutt's Florida was a
finalist, and Dana Spiotta was a finalist for the award in 2006 for
Eat The Document. Other former students whose writing has
met with praise include Michael
Kimball, author of several novels including Dear
Everybody, and Bahamian writer Garth Buckner, whose The
Origins of Solitude met with some critical acclaim.

Lish also continued teaching creative writing, inspiring writers
including Amy Hempel (who dedicated her
collection Reasons to Live to him).

During his time at Knopf, Lish published several volumes of his own
fiction:

What I know so far, a hardback of short stories, was
published in 1984 and included "For Rupert—with no promises.", and
the O.Henry Award-winning "For Jeromé—with Love and
Kisses," a parody of J.D.Salinger's
story, "For Esmé—with Love and Squalor."

Peru, was published in 1986.

In 1987, Lish founded and edited the avant garde literary magazine,
The Quarterly, which showcases the works of contemporary
authors. Six volumes were published by the summer of 1988, and such
authors were introduced as J. E. Pitts, Jane
Smiley, Mark Richard, and Jennifer Allen. By the time the Quarterly
ended in 1995, it had published 31 volumes.

Lish continued to write fiction, including Mourner at the
door in 1988, Extravaganza in 1989, My
Romance in 1991, and Zimzum in 1993. For the June
1991 issue of Vanity
Fair, James Wolcott wrote a
profile on Gordon Lish and Don DeLillo
called "The Sunshine Boys."

Since 1998

On August 9, 1998,
The New York Times
Magazine published an article by D.T.Max about claims that
the late Raymond Carver's early short
stories were more or less ghost-written by Lish, his editor. Other
writers associated with Carver, such as Tobias Wolff and Tess
Gallagher (Carver's wife at the time of his death) have steadfastly
denied such claims. In December 2007 The
New Yorker magazine published an earlier and much longer draft
of Carver's story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love"
under Carver's title, "Beginners." The magazine published Lish's
extensive edits of the story on its web site for comparison.

Teaching and Influence

For three
years in the early 1960s, Lish taught as an English teacher at
Mills High School, Millbrae, California. His high school teaching career ended when
school administrators declined to give him tenure. Donovan Bess,
writing in The Nation Magazine, wrote that "essentially, Lish is
accused: of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag too
speedily (time: 8.7 seconds); of “teaching on Cloud Seven” (two
clouds too high); of flouting the system by, for example; making
the kids give the answers’ of being “a screwball”; of wearing a hat
indoors; of founding a “beatnik” literary magazine, called Genesis
West; of using the word “shit” in a short story; of being
unpredictable and moody-looking; of sponsoring avant-garde student
poetry (at Mills, poetry that does not rhyme is avant-garde)”.
Several students and adults testified on his behalf at the hearing.
The full story is detailed in “The Man Who Taught Too Well" By
Donovan Bess, The Nation Magazine, June 15, 1963, pages
507-516.

David Leavitt's novel Martin
Bauman; or, A Sure Thing documents the narrator's experiences
under the tutelage of Gordon Lish. In the novel, Lish is the basis
for the character of Stanley Flint, an enigmatic writing teacher.
T.Gertler's
novel, Elbowing the Seducer, has a character who is a book
editor and womanizer who is apparently based on Lish. It is unknown
who Gertler really is -- this writer only published on story in
Esquire and one novel. In Barry
Hannah's short novel, Ray, there is a character called
Captain Gordon who is based on Lish, and Lish appears as himself in
Hannah's Boomerang.

Michael Hemmingson's critical
study, Gordon Lish and His Influence on 20th Century American
Literature was published on July 1, 2009 by Tylor &
Francis/Routledge.